It was 16 years ago this afternoon that six individuals, including Robert Kirkpatrick of Suffern, became the first innocent victims of terrorists at the World Trade Center.

On Feb. 26, 1993 the Twin Towers were rocked by an explosion deep in the underground levels. The blast, the work of terrorists who had driven a load of explosives into the underground parking areas, came at 12:18 p.m.

Kirkpatrick, an employee of the Port Authority, was at work in the towers when he was trapped in the explosion and collapse of tons of concrete.

Kirkpatrick’s death hasn’t been forgotten in Rockland, even after 87 individuals identified by The Journal News as having links to the county died in the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

In fact, there are connections that forever link the two terror incidents.

The afternoon Kirkpatrick died, a New York City Fire Department unit headed by Lt. John Woods of Pearl River rescued 16 people trapped in a WTC stairwell. And later, they searched for victims and recovered the remains of Robert Kirkpatrick. Five others who perished, John DiGiovanni, Stephen Knapp, William Macko, Wilfredo Mercado, and Monica Rodriguez, who was pregnant, were also recovered.

Months later, when his unit was honored for their actions that day, Woods spoke about problems FDNY members had communicating over radios in the aftermath of the attack, a problem that persisted eight years later.

On Sept. 11, 2001, Woods, then retired, lost his son James, who worked for Cantor Fitzgerald at the WTC. Woods helped with the search at Ground Zero, where his son’s remains were eventually recovered and identified.

Shortly before his death, Kirkpatrick’s family moved from Lonergan Drive in Suffern, a street visited by sorrow again in 2001.

FDNY Lt. John Ginley had grown up on the street, where his parents still lived at the time he died in the terror attacks. Their neighbor, FDNY firefighter Charlie Anaya, also perished in the rescue attempts on Sept. 11.

Along with Anaya and Ginley, Kirkpatrick is remembered on the Rockland County Sept. 11 Memorial at Haverstraw Bay County Park along the Hudson River and on Suffern’s 9/11 memorials at Village Hall and at Donna Hallett Park on the street they all called home.

My colleague Chris Mautone over at the Opinion Exchange blog often writes here about letters we receive that are just warmed-over form letters from big organizations, groups, movements, etc. The writer can clip a letter-to-the-editor template from a Web site and then tailor it to the publication. Usually, though, people just send them in as is, and that’s how we know that the submission isn’t someone’s original work, but it part of a pre-fab letter-writing campaign.

Well, such letter-writing campaigns happen on the small scale, too. I handle the bulk of the letters from Rockland, and I recently had the exact same letter (grammatical oddities and all) from two different people. It was about the March 10 Clarkstown school bond. Now, the $187 million bond is big, and it’s controversial, and it’s stirred up a lot of chatter and a lot of letter-writing. But, you have to write your own letter to get it published.

So, if your letter starts out like this, it’s not getting published:

As a long time resident, whose children (were/are) educated in Clarkstown Schools, I have always tried to support the District. Unfortunately, that support will not include the upcoming $187MM bond vote on March 10th.

Notice the option for the letter writer to specify if his or her kids are now current or are former Clarkstown students. This writer didn’t even bother to personalize the letter that much. I would like to thank this writer, though, for making my job that much easier.

As we ready for our Editorial Board election endorsement interviews, I’ve already ran into one problem. Two “write-in candidates” wanted to attend the hearing.

You have to be on the ballot to attend the hearing. It’s not personal. But that’s the rule and even for candidates who tried to get on the ballot but failed, we’re not bending it.

In this case, the candidates were pushed off the ballot through a challenge. Here’s their letter to the editor on the issue.

Anyone can mount a write-in campaign, so we can’t ever let some who say they are write-in candidates attend, because who are we leaving out? In fact, I would have to invite “Mickey Mouse” to every possible endorsement hearing, since he’s been a perpetual ballot write-in favorite for at least a half century.

Those write-ins, though, can participate in hearings that are Web-streamed and add their questions and comments to the live chats. Review hearing times here.

It’s a poetic first in the LoHud! Rockland County has named a Poet Laureate, Dan Masterson, who has been teaching English at Rockland Community College for 45 years. Read a press release on the county Web site.

Westchester County doesn’t have a poet laureate, according to a county spokeswoman. A check with Putnam County turned up a pledge to inquire. They were still checking—so if they once did, it doesn’t seem they do now. Rockland, then, is alone in naming a poet laureate.

Masterson is very well-known. Arthur Gunther, Editorial Page Editor here for many years, counts himself as a fan.

The American Poet Laureate is appointed by the Library of Congress. That person makes the post what he or she chooses, according to Library of Congress’ Web site — a lecture here, a public reading there are obligatory. And there’s advocacy for new poets, too.

So, what does a Rockland County poet laureate do? Well, there’s already a poetry event scheduled for November at RCC to celebrate the college’s 50th anniversary. Masterson has “inspired decades of students, from our honors students who have gone on to the Ivy League, to those who simply needed to learn the fine art of expression,” RCC President Cliff Wood states in the county press release announcing the appointment.

And, who decides who gets the post? Apparently, Masterson is going to help establish a protocol for selection of future poets laureate.

Added bonus: Comments from Arthur Gunther III, Rockland Editorial Page Editor emeritus:

I was both a student of Dan Masterson (at RCC, 1968) and 30 years later a newspaper commentator on his by then large body of poetry and accomplishment as a Rockland Community College professor.
As a student in his creative writing class, I was encouraged by Dan to write from life experience, however little one has at age 26, but also from the hope of the future, exiting the door of the past to the stage of the present to the door of the future, taking stock of a soul’s journey.
When, decades later, I wrote editorials and essays for The Journal News about Dan and his writings, I found that what his own life was all about was also taking a trip with one’s soul. He practiced what he preached.
A magnificent writer, an elegant man, a worthy first Rockland poet laureate.

It’s spring village election time. This year, we’ve got three contested races: Airmont, Montebello and Pomona. The rest of the villages have incumbents running unopposed, except for Hillburn, where a trustee is running for the mayor’s seat and a first-time candidate runs for his trustee seat. And in Wesley Hills and New Hempstead, there aren’t any village board positions up this year. So, the candidates for the three villages with contested races will be invited to sit down with us (and you!) to discuss the issues in their villages. We try to use Mogulus and Cover It Live to webcast as many of these hearings as possible. You’ll find details in tomorrow’s Journal News Opinion page, or on LoHud.com/opinion. Also, candidates in uncontested races, as long as those in a challenged race, are invited to participate in a candidates database. For more information, look here. This is great for the candidates, but it’s really wonderful for the voters, who have even more information at their fingertips.
The Journal News/LoHud edit board interviews and endorses candidates in all challenged elections (except judicial posts), from the village to the federal level. It can be interesting, it can be entertaining (some funny local pols we have), it can be educational (yes, there are some smart ones too. It can even be a little, er, energetic—fingers point, arms fly, sometimes candidates even stand toe-to-toe to discuss the issues. Ah, the memories.
By the way, if you have a question for the candidates, drop me an email and I’ll add it to my stack of queries: ncutler@lohud.com

It’s good to see that the Ben Gilman Medical and Dental Center in Spring Valley will be open on Saturdays, a long point of contention since its parent agency has received millions in federal aid.

The issue was simple, yet very complex.

The center’s operators are Jews who observe the sabbath on Saturday, a day when the NAACP and others argued many Spring Valley residents of other faiths would like to access the center and its services without having to take time off from work during the week.

The standoff goes back several years and has resulted in an on-again, off-again discrimination complaint against the center by the civil rights group.

The parties came close to a resolution in 2007, but that fell apart when the state found no bias.

Mendel Hoffman, the head of Monsey-based Community Medical and Dental Care Inc., which operates the center along with a sister facility in Monsey, now says opening the clinic on Saturday is in the interests of its patients.

“I’m changing my policy,” Hoffman says, “because of my firm belief  in serving the public good and preserving the health of all above all else.”

The Saturday hours will begin soon, said Hoffman, who will also operate the center on Jewish holidays falling during the week.

Whatever motivation, the bottom line decision is the right one — making health care funded by federal dollars available to all, no matter of their faith, the color of their skin or their ethnicity.

The key, off course, will be having the right staff to make the Saturday hours a success.

When elected officials and officers of non-profit groups paraded to the microphone at the Suffern Free Library, some were there to plead that state budget cuts be restored and some even had the moxie to ask the five members of Rockland’s Abany delegation to set aside money for new initiatives.

But when Montebello Mayor Jeff Oppenheim spoke, he had a very practical concern.

He didn’t want the cost of road repairs in the village to trickle down to local taxpayers because Gov. David Paterson was cutting into assistance under the Comprehensive Highway Improvement Plan.

Now Paterson says money from the federal economic stimulus program will be used to restore much of the $112 million that was being cut.

If everything holds up, it means that communities other than New York City will get the same amount of CHIP assistance they got for the 2008-09 fiscal year which wraps up at the end of March.

If the usual assistance didn’t come from the state, Oppenheim told state Sen. Thomas Morahan and Assembly members Ken Zebrowski, Ellen Jaffee, Annie Rabbitt and Nancy Calhoun — all of whom represent either all or part of Rockland — that wasn’t going to magically mend the village roads. It was a concern voiced as well by a village mayor who had made the trip from Orange County. 

The roads would still need to be repaired and the only way the village would be able to do that would be to raise village property taxes to fund the work.

It’s true that whether the work is paid for with federal money, state assistance or village property tax receipts, it’s still our tax dollars at work.

But those state or federal funds are coming from deeper pockets than a village government.

If the dollars don’t come from one of those larger, deeper pools, they have to come from a relative puddle raised by a small village.

In this case, it looks like fixing local roads will be one area where what trickles down will be revenue, rather than another expense for local taxpayers.

So here’s a professional athlete on the top of his game, with — at the time — the largest contract ever. His cousin in the Dominican Republic offers him a street concoction that will give him more energy. They’re not sure what it is, but the cousin brings it into the U.S. and the pro allows him to inject him about three dozen times over three seasons. He’s not sure if it’s helping or if the substance is a banned steroid or other supplement. But he keeps taking it anyway.

And then, he says, he stops abruptly because he’s gotten a little older and a little wiser. And oh, by the way, he had a neck injury and it got him worried.

That’s Alex Rodriguez’s story and he’s sticking to it…at least for now.

Forget that it’s unbelievable on it’s face.

Forget that he admits he likely wouldn’t have come forward were it not for the recent report in Sports Illustrated and a later interview with ESPN.

Rodriguez made it clear he wants to get on with baseball, to be surrounded by his teammates, embraced by the Yankees management. All forgive and praise the next home run champion of baseball, the man who would snatch the tainted title from Barry Bonds.

But wait. There were no follow up questions today in Tampa, in a press conference orchestrated by the Yankees. Rodriguez sidestepped many of the questions and just didn’t reply to others.

The episode, he said early on, was “a stupid mistake and a lesson learned.”

But reporters, true baseball fans and maybe even some Yankee apologists will  have many more questions  throughout Spring Training, into the season and probably into A-Rod’s retirement years, when he hopes everyone will look the other way and enshrine him in the Hall of Fame.

Who is you cousin? What’s his name? He’s not saying.

If it wasn’t helping, why keep doing it for three years? He was young and curious, he says.

Do you consider what you did cheating. “That’s not for me to determine.”

How could you not know what you were doing? It was over the counter stuff, he says.

Should you statistics from those years be wiped away? There will be a lot of debate over that, he says.

If you didn’t think what you were doing was wrong, why did you hide it from everyone? “I knew we weren’t taking Tic Tacs.”

When Mark McGwire was before Congress, his mantra was, “I’m not here to talk about the past.”

Today, A-Rod’s  became “I was young and curious.”

But there were hints of McGwire, too.

“Spring Training represents a new start for me,” he says.

And, later, “I hope, after my career is over, the evidence falls in my favor.”

His last words the the day: “Judge me from this day forward.”

If only life worked that way.

It’s more likely, after today’s press conference and his half approach to the truth, that another of his observations is more likely to come to pass.

Asked about the questions that follow from his truth by the dose approach with Katie Couric, Sports Illustrated and others, he said, “I may have to answer for the rest of my life.”

Parking has always been an issue in Nyack, from the heyday of the old Tappan Zee Playhouse, to the peak of the antique trade to the influx of restaurants.

The village has always been a draw, no matter the era and no matter the attraction.

Over the decades, there has always been one more parking problem than there are solutions.

There have been different approaches, different rates and different studies of the problem.

As contentious as parking has been, the village has now found a new way to kick the tension up a notch  — bumping the fee to 75 cents per hour to try to cut into Nyack’s budget deficit.

So far, it’s not a very popular idea. Shoppers were mixed when reporter Ben Rubin  told them about the plan,  which would go into effect in June if enacted by the Village Board.  Merchants and workers in the village  were a little more concerned, fearing that  shoppers will  eventually rebel at paying more.

Bumping up the fines for overtime, overnight and handicapped parking violations sounds like a better idea, even to me.

Shortly after the new system went into operation, I spent 20 or 30 minutes pulling into and then out  of spaces that looked good at first, only to turn out inappropriate.

How I didn’t get a ticket still eludes me.

That aside, raising money by raising parking rates — while posing some threat to the free flow of customers downtown — sound like a better Idea than slashing away at beneficial programs atr the Nyack Center and elsewhere.

The center is an anchor downtown and programs there are valuable to residents of all ages.

At the very least, bumping the parking rate by 25 cents can give Nyack a start on plugging its cash gap.

Even if it isn’t enough to mend a broken budget, maybe it can keep the village on its feet to find other solutions.

It was mostly routine testimony yesterday, when Rockland leaders of nonprofits, local business owners, school officials and elected officials spoke at a public hearing on the Gov. David Paterson’s proposed 2009-10 state budget. Here’s the news coverage.

The hearing was sponsored and attended by the “Hudson Valley” delegation: State Sen. Thomas Morahan, R-New City; Assemblyman Kenneth Zebrowski, D-New City; and Assemblywomen Nancy Calhoun, R-Blooming Grove; Ellen Jaffee, D-Suffern; and Annie Rabbit, R-Greenwood Lake. They wanted to hear local priorities, and they did. There was concern expressed about school aid cuts and health care cuts, and lots of nodding in agreement. This year’s state budget plan, most often described as “Draconian,” has stirred much concern, frustration and plain old hand-wringing.

But there was one light moment: Greg Julian, who ran on the Democratic ticket against Morahan last fall, came to the podium. The Democratic Party activist and poly sci professor at Pace U. smiled as he made a pitch for Morahan to join the Democratic majority that just took over the Senate. Morahan looked a little shocked, and made no response. Julian pointed out that so many Democrats already vote for Morahan (he oughtta know, in November, Morahan topped Julian by more than 30,000 votes in the Rockland portion of the 38th District, which includes all of this county and the towns of Tuxedo and Warwick in Orange County.) I guess Julian’s put a twist on “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em,” and made it, “If you can’t beat ‘em, get them to join you.”

After the session, I asked Morahan is there was a chance I would need to practice typing “D-New City” after his name. Uh, no. He admitted Julian’s idea threw him a bit, but he shrugged and saw the humor. Morahan noted that he did just fine passing legislation (and “getting things done”) when he was in the minority in the Assembly. I asked how things had changed, and he said he’s found a lot of cooperation and is still able to get bills out of committee (including a bill add PTSD to Timothy’s Law, which pushes for mental health insurance coverage parity.) He admitted he now has a smaller office, on a lower floor, and his parking spot is a little farther away. And, no, he’s never been in the “Brunomobile” nor seen it, nor knew anything about it.